X-Blades

"X-Blades, but with more magic and less blades."

X-blades review

Having cleared Devil May Cry 3 and 4, and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, I've been looking for a good hack'n'slash game to play after those. While waiting to get Dynasty Warriors: Gundam 2, I thought I'd give X-Blades a shot. After all, I loved the idea of fast swordplay against tons of enemies, with guns on the backs of the swords. However, when I actually rented it (With so many let-downs in gaming right now, I always rent before I buy), it failed in almost every criteria.

Graphics: 8/10
This is the game's only real strong point. If you liked the CGI anime movie “Appleseed”, you will probably like the style of this game. The lighting is amazing, especially in particularly sunny areas. However, even this area of the game has its flaws. First, the enemies are fairly generic looking, and also are not even very detailed. The game also loses points in this category for how shamelessly obvious the fan service factor is with Ayumi's wardrobe, particularly in nothing covering either side of her g-string. I may be a male gamer, but I'm actually turned away from games that try to use girls in skimpy clothes to sell the game. Soulcalibur III is pretty much where I draw the line at suggestiveness. The physics are pretty good in general, especially Ayumi running, but whoever popularized the idea of bouncing breasts physics really needs to be banished to the Hyrule of the CD-I Zelda games. Honestly, I'm getting really sick of it being in (almost) EVERY action game with one or more female character in it. It's completely pointless, and it's only there to appease the no-life pervs out there. In short: Visual effects: Wonderful; Physics: good; Fan-service: Terrible.

Sound: 5/10
The sound effects are satisfying in my opinion, such as the the low hum of the slow-mo jump Ayumi performs before unleashing the Earthquake spell. And the sounds of monsters getting hit with the swords are also good. However, it's the music that really suffers in this category. While the rock music fits, it is not memorable at all, and some of the non-rock music is extremely lazy and repetitive, often having the same four notes for several measures. And now for the worst part of the sounds: the voice acting. In my opinion, the best voice actor in the game was the first tiger-like boss, who spoke in a growly voice. Ayumi sounded good in the first cutscene, but her voice work is a dismal failure past that point. There is also a male character (*gasps* A male, in this game!?!) whose name escapes me who has the worst voice acting of everyone. This game could have benefited greatly from text-only dialogue. In short: Sound FX good; Music mediocre; Voices: Terrible.

Story: 1/10
What can I say about this? I got to roughly the sixth level when I rented this, and still almost nothing was explained about the world this game is set in, who the characters are, what this artifact is that Ayumi found, or who this dude is who showed up and rescued her from spikes. Now granted, I'm not supposed to know all of that at the beginning of a game, but some non-combat exploration and interaction with other NPCs would've helped me understand more about the characters and the world they exist in. But all I got for explanation is that Ayumi heard about an artifact that held the power of a god, and she goes to find it. She fights her way to it and gets it, then ends up with a curse of some kind, which is not even identified as being a curse until long after she is shown being cursed. By that I mean that in the second cutscene she is shown with all sorts of black markings appearing on and around her, but until the next cutscene several levels later, we do not know what that was all about, then it's just shoved in our faces that that was a curse. The game does not do nearly enough explaining of the story between fighting in the levels. I had high hopes for the story here, but it might be the weakest point of this game. In short: Entire Story: Terrible.

Gameplay/fun:2/10
The second-weakest point of this game, and ultimately the one that counts the most in a video game, is the gameplay of it. There are several annoying mechanics that really hinder the fun of chaining near-endless combos on hordes of ground enemies (I have been able to get over 60 hits on a group of enemies without getting hit myself). The biggest problem with the gameplay in this game is the Magic/Rage system. This is because roughly 80% of the enemies in the game can only be consistently defeated using Magic. There are a number of frustrating reasons for this. First, many enemies are completely immune to any kind of attack except magic. That's forgivable so long as those enemies are not the majority, which, thankfully, they aren't. Then, there is the more annoying problem of enemies that are technically vulnerable to other damage, but they are really vulnerable to other damage in name only. By this I am referring to the majority of flying enemies in the game. While technically you can shoot them or slash them, these are not viable options in reality. If you try to shoot them with your guns, you'll be there ‘til judgment day, because the guns are so weak that they are only effective against the smallest of enemies. If you try to slash the flying enemies, you WILL be attacked, and you WILL take damage, and 90% of the time, your attack WILL miss. The aerial combat in this game is horrible, overall. So now that it's established that an overwhelming majority of the game's enemies, between flying enemies and weapon-proof bosses, are only vulnerable to magic, let's take a closer look at why this dependence on magic is such a bad thing. There are two big reasons for this: the rage-meter mechanics, and the targeting system. Now when you are using melee attacks, the lock-on button is not very important at all, but it certainly is when you're trying to use a ranged magic attack on something. The game will automatically put a red cursor around an enemy, and if you pull LT while it's on an enemy, you will lock onto that enemy. However, what if the game has put the red cursor on an enemy you do not want to lock onto? Well, there is no manual “switch targets” button; you just have to not pull LT yet, turn, and hope the game puts the cursor on the one you want to lock onto, then hope you pull the LT in time before it switches to one you don't want again. Problem #2 with the magic system is with the magic “Rage” meter. Unlike most games, it is constantly decreasing, even if you're not using any magic, so you're pressured to make your magic attacks quickly before you lose the Rage points you've built up, even if it means firing it off when it might make you get hit by someone else. Getting the rage built up is another problem. It can be done by either buying more rage points from the items menu (which can be done at any time, but costs souls [basically money] that you should get to use for upgrades), attacking enemies with your swords, or charging it up by clicking the left thumbstick and holding it. The problem with the method of gathering rage with sword strikes is that there are not always enemies present that you can attack with your swords effectively to get a reliable source of rage points. Charging is rarely viable as well, as it takes a long time in which you cannot do anything, not even move slightly. In levels that require heavy use of magic, there are often respawning crystals you can pick up for rage points, but you must attack them twice to get the rage from them. In the time it takes to run to the crystal and break it open, you may already have taken a lot of cheap damage from pursuers. And again, even when you have a full rage meter, it's very possible you could lose half of it without firing a single shot, as it is always auto-depleting and it often takes a long time to lock on to the enemy you want to target. Finally, there are several mobility problems in X-Blades. Firstly, there is no good evasive maneuver, such as dashing. You can roll, but you have to push the A button and the left thumbstick in a direction AT THE EXACT SAME TIME. And even if you can pull it off, you WILL be hit as soon as you get up from it. So that only leaves jumping and double-jumping, which are decent for evasion, but they do not have enough horizontal movement to dodge many of the enemies' ranged attacks, and on top of that, if there are any melee enemies near you when you jump, you WILL be attacked as soon as you land. The only worthwhile evasive move is the Teleport spell, but guess what? It requires Rage to use, which you either won't have or will need to use for something else. The only reason why this gameplay category is not a 1/10 is because comboing ground enemies can be fun in those rare opportunities that there is nothing else to worry about.

Average score: 4/10
Avoid this game. If you're one of those people who see Ayumi's g-string as a plus, this game isn't worth it even for you. If you're like me and see that as a negative, then there are even fewer redeeming qualities to this game. It's not even worth the roughly-$8.00 it would cost to rent it. Avoid this game. Plain and simple.

Reviewer's Score: 4/10, Originally Posted: 05/21/09

Game Release: X-Blades (US, 02/06/09)